Reviews, how-tos and interviews just for you from Camden Council Libraries.

October 06, 2013

Review - The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson

This is a short but difficult book to come to grips with. Set in the 1600s in the height of the witch mania which has blighted our western history, Winterson evokes the hard conditions afflicting the poor and dispossessed. Scratching a living on the margins of society and with no-one to speak for them, the characters in this novel who find themselves locked up and awaiting trial for witchcraft live through dreadful travails. By the end of it though, I didn't find any character I could care about. Just about everyone was rather wretched. It feels historically accurate largely due to her sure usage of local dialect and sure hand with the living conditions but I'm not really sure why Winterson has told the story? What do you think?
Wendy